Apologies for the very anti-uplifting story, but porn actresses getting outed is a topic we’ve covered quite a bit around these parts. It’s easier to find a villain when your porn company outs you after finding out you’re a minor celebrity, like what happened with Miss Teen Delaware, but trickier when people who know you find out on their own, as happened with Belle Knox, and apparently happened to 19-year-old University of Wisconsin student Alyssa Funke (pictured). She did a video for Casting Couch X (as “Stella Ann”) that went up in March, and ended up committing suicide April 16th.

Her high school classmates seem to have found out about her video shortly before the suicide, but suicide, as always, is a complicated subject that surely defies simple cause and effect. And I’m sure the local media will cover it with the tact and nuance it deserves…

The first thing a person might notice about Alyssa is that she is stunningly beautiful, but she is so much more — a straight-A student, and a freshman at the University of Wisconsin’s River Falls campus with big dreams. [FoxTwinCities]

Ah sh*t.

Just a few days after that video was posted online, Alyssa began getting taunting messages on Twitter and Facebook — mostly from old classmates at Stillwater High School, where students were abuzz and they were not kind.

Students huddled around their phones in the cafeteria, looking at the video. One student sent a tweet that said, “Wow your a thot” — slang for a prostitute — “Does her dad know?”

Another wrote, “Nothing brings a school together like a porn star who graduated last year. I guess you could say news spreads fast here at Stillwater hahah.”

Alyssa responded with her own tweets, “famous for dayzzz” and “pornstar status, a-okay” — but everything was not okay. Two weeks after the video was posted online, on April 14, Alyssa bought a 12-gauge shotgun, drove to a picturesque boat landing on Big Carnelia Lake and killed herself. She was only 19 years old.

Funke’s family said she had struggled from depression in the past and didn’t have a great family life, but obviously we can’t let news like this go without some charmingly reductive, thinkpiece-y writings on the dangers of “cyberbullying” and an anti-porn activist reminding us all that “porn lasts forever.”

…her classmates at UW-River Falls say they have little doubt about what drove her to suicide.

“A lot of people are really negative — troll-y — about it or standing up and saying it shouldn’t happen to people,” Katrina dodge said. “Sad it’s still happening, actually.”

Still, the question remains, who is this Katrina, and why doesn’t she capitalize her last name?

Joy Friedman is a social worker with Breaking Free, a non-profit that helps women get out of the sex industry. She sees young women like Alyssa and [Belle Knox] all the time and sees little difference between pornography and prostitution — especially when she hears the man behind the camera.

“He did the same thing that pimps do,” she said. “It reminds me of the pimps who talked to me.”

Friedman believes that because children are exposed to pornography at a younger age, they’ve become desensitized to it and don’t realize that the decision to do porn today could follow them for a lifetime.

“This is permanent, she can’t erase this. Now, it goes into your family, it goes into your friends, it goes into your career,” Friedman said. “In the future, this is what you’re known for and this is who you’re labeled as. That affects you.”

Hey, you know what else might affect you? People who don’t even know you assuming that you’re a prostitute.

The man in the video asked Alyssa if she had a normal childhood. She said yes, but Friedman didn’t buy that either.

“I bet if we had to go back and pull back the layers of what happened for her, I imagine we’d find something dysfunctional in her past,” Friedman said.

“The fact is: If this is such a glamorous, okay job/lifestyle/career, why’d she kill herself?” Friedman asked. [FoxTwinCities]

Ugh. Just because you’re supposedly trying to help doesn’t make it okay to be a presumptuous asshole.

Look: People, whatever their underlying issues may be, often make the conscious decision to star in porn of their own free will. That’s their decision. Meanwhile, most of us watch that porn, so is it really that much to ask for you to be nice to them about it? Would you crap on the farmer while eating his peaches? Okay, that was probably a poor choice of words. The point is, mind your own damn business and don’t be a f*cking hypocrite.

Just to add to this thread: I enjoyed two pieces of this young lady’s body of work last night, and I gotta say: She was a talented young lady, and not only is it a shame it came to this, but its also a shame that someone with raw talent like her’s will never grace the search engines at Xham.

Stories like this make me fucking hate people. So sad and tragically (possibly) avoidable. Looks like those anti-bullying ads should be marketed towards older kids as well — even adults. So young, intelligent and beautiful and now…nothing, because of onslaughts of hateful, ignorant excuses for human beings.

While the people who did this were, ahem, not nice — she didn’t kill herself only because of this. It was probably a factor, but as the story says, she had a messed up home life and family, she was obviously hurting for cash, and she had a history of depression. The porn itself was probably a sign of her instability. She was just in a bad way. That made her vulnerable, but it was probably no one thing that made her do this.

I agree with the anti-bullying sentiment, but this isn’t a new thing. The only new aspect of this and similar incidents is the internet. The internet makes it possible to spread this stuff around much more quickly. In the past, “scandals” or events like this still came out and destroyed people, it was just less likely.

Everything is political. Politics is literally the interactions between people.

But would you rather I said “mouth-breating Christian fundamentalists?” Because that’s the same group, anyway. Pretending that there is no correlation between political ideology and behavior is asinine and demonstrably false, and those who place a larger role on shame and righteous, supernatural judgment are more likely to act in ways that shows little to no actual restraint because their faith in irrational and superstitious moralizing has beaten down any normal socialization that would create empathy or self-awareness that their actions are overreactive, excessive, or cruel.

Finally, her community has every marker of FNC’s target demographic: white, conservative, Christian, and rural.

I do enjoy seeing people bitch because you don’t like that I know what I’m talking about.

If you want, you can click on my profile and go through my comments. I guarantee you that if we go head to head, I’m not the one who has more posts as a percentage or numerical value that is nothing but bitching about politics.

Fox news mentality is the problem. Not the channel itself but the zombie, mouthbreathing followers who cannot think for themselves, and accept a bastardized reactionary extreme zealot view of christianity. I blame Jesus or at least the cultural use of this false prophet as annexed by conservative american ideology for pretty much all ills. Jesus killed this girl.

or she was a depressed and mixed up kid who suffered from a pretty severe form of depression. maybe a bit of both.

Actually, some porn performers do videos for “private collectors” — meaning they have sex with a guy so he can have a film of it. This is pretty much prostitution by any other name. Kristen Jordan mentioned doing this in a Reddit chat. The reason dating/marriage wouldn’t qualify as prostitution is because there is no direct money-sex exchange; with private collectors, there is.

Being paid can mean good and services. Just because it isn’t money doesn’t mean you aren’t getting paid.

05.22.14 at 3:11 pm

Vince Mancini

We can argue what is or isn’t prostitution until we get blown in the face, but let’s go deeper: who gives a shit? If someone wants to get paid for sex let them. There’s a reason why it’s the world’s oldest profession.

If the only way you can get a wife is by paying her, then, yes, that marriage involves some prostitution. For most adults, however, relationships involve more than bribing people for sex or using sex to get things.

@Vince – I only brought it up because the story suggested the bullying included someone calling her a “prostitute” (or stupid variation thereof which I’ve never heard of) after seeing her have sex for money.

If someone catches me slinging whiskey at the Gem (maybe you’ll understand that reference one day, *sigh*), I’m not going to consider it bullying if someone says “Wow, Al’s a bartender!”

But what really gets me is knowing that the vast majority of the people that judge pornstars negatively, including the people that bullied and shamed this girl about it are all fucking hypocrites that watch porn.

I fully agree with the hypocrisy angle. But let’s also not pretend that doing porn is something that won’t, or even shouldn’t carry a stigma of some sort. There’s another type of hypocrisy potentially at play here. I say this, not because I have any negative feeling towards pornstars, but because I would freak out if my (hypothetical) daughter decided to make that a career. How many people can honestly say they’d rather their daughter be a pornstar than a teacher, doctor, computer tech, etc.?

It’s a fine technical line, but porn (in general) are two people paid by a third party to act in a scene (I know, “acting” is a stretch, but it’s the technical definition of what they are doing) as characters who end up having sex.

Because the person who paid is not involved in the sex, it’s not prostitution as there is no transaction between the sexually-active parties.

It’s similar to how parodies avoid copyright law and why WWE doesn’t call their product wrestling (it’s sports-entertainment because entertainment is charged lesser tax, etc, than competitive sports, so Vince McMahon exploited the loophole).

Al – prostitution is a thing – a concept. a prostitute is person. so, your definition is wrong before reading the second word of it. Also, no. Porn is not prostitution. That’s why we have different words for each. Words have meaning, and not just the one you screw up.

They’re all sex workers, but there isn’t a sex worker hierarchy (at least I don’t see why there would be). It’s not about “lowering” porn stars to the level of prostitutes, it’s about knowing what words mean.

I get why you brought it up. I highly doubt being called a “thot” is what pushed this girl over the edge. She was probably called much worse things, but it was the most SFW thing the article could quote.

If I was a porn star, and someone called me a prostitute, I would assume that person doesn’t know what words mean. I wouldn’t take it as an insult because, since I’m already a porn star, I’m probably pretty cool with sexual lifestyles of all sorts and shit. A porn star who considers prostitutes beneath them is… being inconsistent, to say the least.

I think you get me. I certainly didn’t bring it up to start a war about semantics or proper word usage (fuck you, AB – my love for you is waning, BTW). In my lexicon, fucking strangers for money is prostituting yourself, so calling a spade a spade isn’t “bullying”. That said, I’m sure you are correct in that the actual bullying and words used were far, far worse. I know next to nothing of porn (I might have to rely on Martin if I ever want any real info without doing the research myself), but to hear the Belle Knox’s of the world say it’s “empowering” to women makes me cringe. It isn’t.

Question #1 on any application to star in a porn video that is to be posted on the Internet should be:

“Will you be okay if someone you know finds out about this? Really. Think hard about it. Because that’s going to happen. No, I know you THINK it won’t happen…

WAIT!

Don’t sign this yet. Think about it. Someone you know WILL find out about this. I know the Internet seems big, but there are a lot of porn-watchers out there. That kid that sat next to you in chemistry? He watches porn. Your dad? He watches porn. Right now, there’s someone within 50 feet of you who is either watching porn or will watch porn within the hour. So… are you sure? Are you REALLY sure?”

“Do you want to buy my smack? Wait! First watch “the basketball diaries” and “requiem for a dream” before you answer. Do you still want to earn me money? Have you studied up on the risk of infection when using intravenous drugs? Have you researched the statistics on this drug and its addiction and recidivism rate? Do you still want to put cash in my pocket? No? Well…. then I guess I can’t profit off of you.”
^^^
Yeah,because that is how these things work right.

Yeah, good call. Beyond that, probably also make them read a pamphlet containing stories like Alyssa’s, Belle’s, Tasha Reign’s, etc. Note the positives as well as the negatives, but try to really make sure they know what they’re potentially opening themselves up to (besides cocks ‘n’ things). Of course, porn producers probably aren’t really keen on the idea of potentially scaring away prospective talent. Not that none of them give a shit about the performers’ well-being, but some definitely don’t, and most of those that do probably still don’t give enough of a shit to risk the scaring-away thing.

Maybe it should be a legislative thing. Of course, for that to be effective might require the taboo to be effectively gone beforehand, which would basically remove the necessity for this kind of safeguard.

@Martin That’s true of some performers, but definitely not all. I’d wager that close to half, if not a large majority, probably just want the money and hope to remain relatively anonymous, like Alyssa here. And if the potential notoriety did cross her mind, then she obviously did not anticipate the magnitude of the nastiness she’d attract.

yes. because 4chan has never done any cyber bullying.
jesus christ people, did you JUST get access to the internet and somehow think 4chan is all anonymous and protectors of the ‘net? cuz its not. /b/ in particular is a cess pool

@Showman you’re right of course, It’s a double edged sword, and my comment was obviously not meant seriously, but that doesn’t change the fact that these are terrible excuses for human beings and they deserve to be scrubbed from the gene pool.

@Deucifer the Sixth porn stars give you the precious gift of boners, they haven’t deserved to get the rest of their life ruined for that. There’s so many former porn stars out there desperately trying to hang on to jobs, but someone always finds out and outs them and so they have to try again all over in the hopes that nobody finds out (someone always does, like Vince said, everyone watches porn).

Vince I know you cover porn quite a bit, did you read Belle Knox’ comments in RS about her first shoot? She claims verbal abuse, slapping, choking, etc. Is that fairly common for these “first timer” type vids or is that mostly frowned upon in the industry?

@Martin – thanks, I know sometimes this is part of the fantasy, but to me there is a big difference between saying “hey this is going to get rough, are you sure you’re down with that?” versus holding someone down, calling them a fat whore, and slapping them without their “permission” and making them feel like they won’t get paid if they don’t go along with it. And I’m not anti-porn – I’m married, so I need porn like flowers need the sun. That just kills my boner.

There’s plenty of studios that produce that sort of stuff, and there’s plenty of people who buy it. If you’re going to make a couple bucks doign some work, doesn’t it behoove you to determine what sort of company you work for before you do it?

Like the women who’ve sued Max Hardcore in the past, there’s no way they didn’t know what he was famous for, but they still signed the contract.

A bigger issue with that, which I will need to deal with as my own kids approach that age: Trying to teach kids that porn is fantasy, and that what happens on Facialabuse is fake, and not what women actually want.

adm.fookbar No shit man, I can’t imagine how depraved I’d have been if this was more accessible when I was a teen or in college. College kids these days are probably like “You don’t want to do ATM? What are you, a prude”?!

That’s not entirely true. Historically, the porn industry has been shady as fuck, and no doubt there is abusive and vicious behavior going on behind the scenes. Foreign-originating videos have even more notorious reputations, and stars like Little Caprice have described how their early careers involved abuse and instances of near-rape by their co-stars, boyfriends, directors, et al. And it’s not limited to men, as the federal investigation of Lupe Fuentes would show. I can’t point to specific instances, but it is very likely that there are popular videos where the girls are practically if not literally being raped.

Belle Knox has done videos that are specifically in the genre of abusive, humiliating, and domination over the actress. But the other studios she’s worked for have, at least, better reputations. She has also gotten backlash from male and female stars for being a demanding, hostile or plain-old bitch.

I really do want Vince to go down to the Armory and do a story on Kink.com. If you’ve seen their full videos, you know that they do pre- and post-scene interviews with the models, have the women fill out forms on what the other actors can and can’t do to them, and overall they are very professional — which is important since Kink’s repertoire is BDSM or near-BDSM.

It’s a mixed bag. Does it happen? Yes. Did it happen to Belle Knox? Technically, yes. However, I doubt any of it was unexpected or not part of the act.

Part of the problem is that there’s more supply than demand within the studios. Not every model who comes to L.A. gets to be a Vivid Girl. Even sites like MET-Art have former models who’ve not been entirely positive about their experiences with them.

It really depends, and the lack of understanding by newcomers as to the world beyond “Kim K took it in the ass, sold the video for phat ca$h, and is super famous” does lead to bad situations. There’s probably been one or two cocksucker producers/directors at even the “good” studios because of that very fact, going back to it being a market where they can pick from whichever applicants they want.

It’s hard to say, though. The mob doesn’t control porn like it did with Deep Throat, but it’s still a very insular community and most people don’t know or don’t want to know, and the squares are more likely to just shit on anyone who says something or exploit them for their own ends.

I’d sooner have my daughter do a film with one of the fantasy snuff studios than Brazzers. At least the former are up front about what they’re selling. No one seems to notice, or care about how much of the Brazzers movies, including most if not entire sub-lines like Punish That Bitch, devoted to rape fantasies. Those are treated as acceptable and even have the girls getting into it, which is far more insidious that a movie where you go into the movie knowing that the fantasized behavior is criminal and wrong. That doesn’t mean that the guys at Brazzers are assholes, but … I’d be less inclined to trust them if I were a woman looking to get into porn.

@adm.fookbar Even the BTS folks at Kink have admitted on camera during post-game interviews to instances where the actors did things the models specifically said they did not want to be done to them, and Kink is arguably the most professional BDSM studio in the world.

It’s been a long time, but the gist of what I recall of Max Hardcore was that was a regular occurrence, which seems at least like bad faith dealing.

@whatitiz73 “90% of what comes out of Belle Knox’s mouth is bullshit in my opinion.”

Oh Ok well than we have to listen to what you say because you’re god. YOUR OPINION DOESN’T MATTER. What is factual matters. If you discovered and could cite that 90% of what comes out of her mouth is bullshit than that would matter. You just stating your opinion doesn’t, you narcissistic asshole.

Most people think their lives and childhoods are normal. It took me a long time to realize differently. So I can understand why she said yes in a video that is entirely contrived to be a fictional interaction pretending to be real. Even if she was self-aware, no one wants to jerk off to one if these back room casting couch videos if the girl says she had a fucked-up childhood out of Dickens. The ones who bother watching the talking parts.

Ummmm… I’m sure the negative reactions were a factor in her suicide, but yes… something caused her to think porn was a solid choice. She obviously had many layers of issues. You don’t need to be Howard Stern to know that all porn stars have “daddy issues.”

@TheOxSaysHisThing Honestly as a UW-Madison student there is a big difference in the culture of Madison and these other UW schools. plus there’s around 8 times the size of people too. so you can go ahead and step off your high horse please.

While discussing poverty with a friend, she asked me if I would ever do porn… you know, in a pinch. I told her that a few things would have to happen or be established first:

All of my immediate family would be dead.
I would never have children.
I would let go of the notion of having any sort of non-porn career. Ain’t gonna happen.
I wouldn’t have friends, unless they were puritans or technologically retarded.

With that being said, I have NO idea who porn actors and actresses do what they do. None. I have a brother who basically IS the internet of porn and the thought of a guy finding his little sister on OH MY GOD NO.

yes. because you’re so very special. and your body is unique. and your morals are the tippy toppiest of top notch. and you will be blessed and ascend to heaven on the wings of angels. and we will hold your memory up as how all young women of strong character should act. forever and ever amen. lady, get over yourself.

Well I don’t know why these people are replying to you so shitty-like. Your comment is basically just an explanation of why pornstars exist. Most people, even those theoretically comfortable with the idea of people watching them have sex (as it seems you are?), are afraid of the ramifications of actually pursuing that career in terms of the damage it might deal their personal lives. So there’s big money to be made by those willing to brave those fires. Alyssa Funke was apparently overly optimistic in this regard. I guess that’s kind of blaming the victim (which I don’t, overall), but it’s also true.

Pretty unclear to me why all these assholes replied this way. @AB is usually pretty funny, but here… I dunno. I thought your point was clear – you don’t mind strangers watching you have sex, but your family or friends … nope. I think you’re mistaken about just how much of a pariah you’d have to be. There are people who wouldn’t be bothered about it.

@RillBomanowski You ever consider that’s why she finds the idea of her brother discovering it terrifying?

@Michael Valentine Smith – what did she say about morals? Nothing. OP worries about the stigma, and so for her, it just isn’t an option.

@JJ Jr.’s point is well made. The rest of you are a murder of assholes.

@Mechakisc
There are definitely a lot of people who wouldn’t be bothered by it, but I think what @amosroscoe meant was that it’d be hard to tell beforehand just how cool each of your friends would be with it, and if even one turns out to secretly be an asshole about it, that could be all it’d take to unleash a whole wave of nastiness from friends of his/hers, friends of those friends, and total strangers, delivered right to your personal Facebook, email address, etc. And you might not even be able to find out who the rat was, after the fact. So, to be as safe as possible, the best solution would be to have no friends who might ever stumble across your performances themselves, or be told about them by their friends. Which, most practically, would mean no friends at all. It is a wide and treacherous web.

This report is both sad and infuriating. I really wish self-righteous a-holes would learn that the “sex industry” doesn’t consist solely of modern day Linda Boremans who need to rescued by the evil, abusive men behind the camera. If they really want to help someone, go crusade against actual pimps or the monsters that smuggle in sex slaves from Asia or Eastern Europe. This poor girl was just trying to make some easy (and legal) money while trying to get through college, a process that depending on student loans could very well leave her in debt no matter how any casting couches she saw.

Resident black guy and English pedant is going to intervene and inform y’all that THOT stands for “That Hoe Over There” (i.e. singular) and not “These Hoes Out There” (which is more of a maxim amongst youngsters versus the previous iteration which acts as a proper noun).

This term – like most post-2000 acronyms – was clearly conceived by a person or groups of people with deficient understandings of the King’s (i.e. Chicago-based rappers that associate with Chief Keef); since it is just about impossible to correctly use “thot” in a sentence (e.g. “she’s a thot” results in “she’s a that hoe over there”). So in fact, @JJ Jr., young people are even stupider than you thought.

Then again, this is a generation that definately, literaly does’nt loose out on the latest trends in sheer idiocy, so I can’t be mad.

It is difficult to truly decipher what ultimately what forced the pull of the trigger. There is no strong consensus amongst mental health professionals about how many suicides are ‘spontaneous’ (killing yourself in the fallout of one damaging event) or if it is a culmination of events throughout the life of the individual and they get to the point where they meet the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Gleaning what I can from the available information, there are a few things I feel safe asserting about the situation:

1. It is difficult for me to believe she was naive enough to believe no one she might know would perhaps view the video. She would have to hope beyond hope that people in her area doesn’t watch porn, or that they don’t have a friend from somewhere else that sends a link to his buddy that says: “Hey, look, it says she goes to your school, lol.” (Forward x 50)

2. Whereas I will not say that having her pornography history being revealed was the traumatic event that made her kill herself, I feel it is obvious that it played a large role.

3. This suicide is a rather damning condemnation of the “slut shaming society” that has become pervasive recently (particularly on the internet).

4. The stigma surrounding adult performers seems to grow despite the fact that more and more pornographic is available and consumed than at any other time in recorded history. It is a really profound dynamic.

It kind of makes me wonder, what if a guy called Jimmy is a student at University of Wisconsin River Falls and he finds the video? What if he then went on to jack off to the movie and then his roommate and a couple friends come in seeing Jimmy masturbate. What is Jimmy now? “Jack Off Jimmy”? Is the entirety of his existence defined by a snapshot from one day of his life?

More than anything, how many “Jack Off Jimmies” are transferring/projecting whatever shame they might have on women like Alyssa Funke? Why should any sex performer be “blamed” for the people that rally around their products and rub themselves? Why should anyone be shamed and/or blamed for any of this?

I was actually at a training today that covered bullying. And I think it is obvious that is what happened in her case. Other than GLBT kids, girls are becoming an alarmingly high percentage of suicides where boys used to be at the top.

If this was a case of bullying, I hope charges come out and a civil suit happens. Since Stillwater is a rich kid community, they can pay in time and money for their shitty choices.

“She would have to hope beyond hope that people in her area doesn’t watch porn, or that they don’t have a friend from somewhere else […]” OR just hope that there aren’t as many judgmental, misogynistic pieces of shit out there as there actually are. That surely would be optimistic, or naive, but not necessarily hard to believe someone might believe that. Hell, I’m surprised at the lack of compassion in a significant portion of the comments here, and I have a pretty negative opinion of people on the internet. But I did think all of us FilmDrunk readers were pretty positive on porn and its performers.

Anyway, you summed that up very nicely. To answer your question, my theory is that the root cause of the shaming is just petty resentment. Resentment of another person being able to use something that they got largely through accident of birth (i.e., a hot body and/or face) to their advantage. “I could do that if I looked like her, that bitch. But I respect myself more than that!” There’s a lot of bullshit in that thinking, of course, but I don’t think the people who get all judgmental about this shit are really prone to introspection or considering the possibility that they might be full of shit.

@ShadIsASpitfire That’s a nice idea, like a reverse-class-action suit against a community of assholes, but I don’t think it’d be practical. I mean, unless there were were one or two particular people whose bullying really pushed her to this. If that’s the case, then obviously those people should be punished.

Being that I live in Minnesota and a short distance from Stillwater, all I can say is this. Stillwater kids are f*cking entitled, preppy asshats. I’m not shocked at all that these “grads” of Stillwater said these things. Classy, no. Above-it-all-entitled-assholes, yes.

Hey, I’m just sticking to questions about the porn stuff I know about (and getting the dark jokes out of my system). I know about Fek’s history from the Frotcast to figure he has a much better perspective to explain how/why she did it, but it doesn’t really matter to us personally.

In High School I dated a girl who worked at one of those Amazing.net superstores, usually in charge of rewinding all the rental VHS’ (no one rewinds once they’re done), and checking the rental DVDs for damage. Hanging out with her while she worked, I basically gained enough porn knowledge to become a porn historian (at least regarding 80’s and 90’s smut). Everything I know after that comes from personal “investigating”.

Depression is a motherfucker, speaking from experience. Semantics of how she was shamed into it, to how shitty an upbringing might have been, I feel like it boils down this: Being depressed really makes you lose sight of how smart, pretty and how much future you have ahead of you(speaking for her).

@Al Prettiness means something as an asset that could’ve been useful in living a happy life, had she not ended it so soon. Though I suppose it’s also a liability in terms of harassment, attracting suitors who turn out to be bad people, etc.; so maybe it balances out to nil.

@al, not to pit experience vs experience here, but anything that can be used as a negative or positive can really affect how depression can amplify. If you’re depressed and someone shits on you for looking ugly, you’re going to feel 100x worse. I imagine this to be especially true for the opposite sex as women put much more effort into their appearance. Don’t underestimate how insecurities tie into depression.

@Mexican Standoff – I’m happy you recognize we all have our own experiences, and I understand what you are now saying about depression vs how we are perceived and how others do. What I took offense to, if you can call it that, was that you are suggesting “being pretty” is an element that should have given her something to live for – I consider being smart, getting an education, “having a bright future” things to be proud of. Being “pretty” is not something that should factor into how worthy one is to live. Maybe I just read you wrong.

Hey… that line where Friedman said, “It reminds me of the pimps who used to talk to me,” does that mean she used to be a prostitute, herself? Or is she just talking about, like, one single pimp she ran into on the street who tried to turn her out?

And that she used a shotgun, man… Don’t women typically commit suicide in less gruesome ways? Swallow a bunch of pills or slit their wrists or something? Seems like that detail might be significant in terms of evaluating her state of mind at the time.

Women are more likely to attempt suicide, but do so in ways that tend to be less lethal (pills, wrist-cutting, etc.). Those are more likely to be inferred as “cries for help” as opposed to failed attempts/accidental failures.

Men are more likely to be successful because they use guns or other weapons. Even using guns has the chance of failing if they shoot themselves incorrectly (A pistol to the temple may just blind you, for example), but that’s seen as being accidental or incompetence.

Eating a shotgun means that she was not even fucking around. She wanted to die.

I gotta say, I question the judgement to include her porn “alias” in the article. It serves no purpose in the article and only serves to alert the pervs looking to beat it to a dead chick. I mean, my porn viewing habits would make most people blush, but that is a bridge too fucking far.

Just being inclusive, I think. Would take the average non-porn-addicted person two seconds to find out her real name.

05.24.14 at 9:11 pm

georgefinnegan

“Meanwhile, most of us watch that porn, so is it really that much to ask for you to be nice to them about it?” The fact that porn stars have sex, in the public eye, with people they have no emotional connection with, for money, is exactly why people can’t empathize or want to be nice to them. And not everyone watches porn for the same reasons. Some people watch so they can see people make themselves into pieces of trash, so they aren’t being hypocrites when they slut shame. The porn industry, on the other hand uses slut factor to sell porn. Google ‘slut’ and ‘porn’ and you get a bazillion titles of pornos. Then they get all upset when people slut shame their actresses, as if it’s everyone else’s fault. Skrew them!

Sad thing this slut killed herself but why the hell is the guy of the couch back room guy not in jail? He is misleading girls and semi raping young girls by lying and scamming…

This dude is a sick bastard and should be in jail. This could all be prevent if sick dudes like that were behind bars. I mean, get a wife or go to whores but don’t scam and mislead girls by promising tons of cash…

the fact that the dude is still free shows how hypocrit America is. Everyone blaims the girl, nobody blaims the sick dude that semi raped her.